Summary of Deep Work — by Cal Newport
A renowned theoretical physicist Peter Higgs works in such isolation that the journalists could not find him after his Nobel prize announcement was done!
You will find many such interesting examples (like deep work practised by Bill Gates and J K Rowling) in the introductory chapter of Deep Work by Cal Newport.
Why Deep work is important?
As the name suggests, deep work is performed in a distraction-free state of mind that pushes your cognitive capabilities to their limits. It creates new values, improves your skill and is hard to replicate. It is increasingly becoming rare in the hyper-connected and constantly distracted world but is very valuable to remain relevant in today’s knowledge economy. The ability to master hard things and to produce at an elite level — are the 2 core capabilities that will help an individual thrive. And both these require an ability to perform deep work. At the level of brain cells aka neurons, an intense focus on specific tasks forces relevant circuits in your brain to fire again and again which increases a matter called Myelin around the cells effectively cementing the skills.
But deep work is increasingly becoming rare due to the accepted culture of ubiquitous connectivity, shallow busyness as a proxy of productivity, and our propensity to consider everything tech as good! However, Human brains are not wired for multi-tasking. Constant connectedness, interruptions, and pings create an attention residue and affect the ability to focus intensely on a given task. Accordingly to Clifford Nass (Communications Professor at Stanford who is well known for his work on human behaviour in the digital age) -
“Constant attention switching online has a lasting negative effect on your brain. People who constantly multitask can’t filter out irrelevancy. They can’t manage a working memory, they are chronically distracted and pretty much mental wrecks!”
However, it is still possible to get into a habit of deep work by creating rituals and systems and bringing your brain out of muscle atrophy!
How to perform deep work?
Cal Newport talks about various philosophies experts authors and scientists follow to perform deep work such as:
- Monostatic philosophy — Eliminating or radically minimizing shallow obligations e.g. discontinue emails
- Bimodal philosophy — Alternating your time between deep work and everything else
- Rhythmic philosophy — Transforming deep work sessions into regular habits e.g. 90-minute chunk every morning same time for deep work
- Journalistic philosophy — Switching into a deep mode anytime you can find a free slot; however, it is hard for beginners to handle such context switching.
How to ritualize deep work?
“Great creative minds think like artists but work like an accountant!”
-David Brooks, NY times
To create your own philosophy of deep work, it is necessary to create rituals and make them part of your system as follows:
How to filter out shallowness?
The above system to ritualize deep work can only succeed if you can weed out constant distractions or at least minimize them. Our brains have become accustomed to distractions that we crave constantly since it gives us dopamine high. As George Packer (Newyorker journalist) says -
“Twitter is a crack for media addicts!”
This applies to all online social media apps. Cal Newport suggests a craftsman’s approach to social media than viewing it as an “any-benefit mindset”. I.e. instead of viewing any small social media benefit as sufficient justification for using the tool (or simple FOMO), adopt a tool only if it has a positive impact on success and happiness in personal and professional life. The impact has to substantially outweigh its negative side effect. He suggests practising the law of vital fews over any-benefit philosophy. And finally, he advocates scheduling every minute of your day in such as way that we don’t get dragged into an auto-pilot mode of proxy productivity and distractions (planning both professional commitments as well as personal family time). This may sound a bit radical, however, a key takeaway from the book is:
Don’t take breaks from distractions; instead, take breaks from focus.
If you haven’t read it yet, grab a copy. It will reset your thought process and compel you to do deep work along with tools and frameworks to achieve the same.
